


Sometimes We Forget

by blackeyedgurl



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Confusion, F/M, Hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-24 01:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2563316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedgurl/pseuds/blackeyedgurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They may sleep, but neither of them knows peace.</p>
<p>Something changed with Paul, but Mellie doesn't know what and doesn't really understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes We Forget

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up to Spy in the House of Love, strays from canon as of Haunted (I wrote this before that epi aired, I tried to work some of it in, but it is what it is)

Mellie remembers when Paul didn’t look at her like this. There used to be warmth in his eyes but now he just seems to look past her, as if he can’t bear to look her in the eye. It’s like he’s lying to her, always keeping a secret, afraid that she’ll see. He took down the Dollhouse wall, and stopped mentioning it to her. He said he didn’t want to bother her with his insanity.

Instead he’s taken to drinking. Not a lot, but enough to take the edge off of him. She hates to admit it, but he’s nicer and calmer and easier to deal with after a few beers.

Sometimes he looks at her with this expectation; he repeats actions, statements, moments, as if he’s trying to recreate something, an event, something she doesn’t know. Then he looks at her like he’s trying to dig something out of her. Sometimes he sneaks up on her and says a random word, once he even said “abracadabra” it made her bust out in giggles, and he even cracked a smile.

He called her November once when he was yelling at her. She doesn’t remember why they were fighting, she never really knew what would set him off. He stopped when he yelled “Goddamnit November!” He caught himself, she wondered if it was in one of his lies. He immediately recanted it and told her to forget what he had said. She wondered if November was a person, or if he was just really angry at the month.

He disappears for hours at a time. A man who was scared to leave his apartment not a week ago now feels the need to be there as little as possible. She wonders if it has something to do with her, but they moved her things in a day after she came back and turned the lease back over to the landlord. She had no home but this, and it had been his choice to let her in. He wanted to protect her. He said that he cared about her; he said he wanted to keep her safe. It was easier if they shared a life. He’s the first man she’s lived with, and it’s not everything she hoped it would be.

She found him tearing apart her old phone this afternoon. He thought she was at the store but she forgot her coupons. He never let her go out by herself, it wasn’t safe, but today had been different. He said it was broken and he was trying to fix it. She didn’t remember breaking it, but she didn’t remember a lot of things. She kissed him on the cheek and he smiled at her, gently running his hand over her hair, it was a kind gesture. The kind of gesture the Paul she remembered would have done.

When she came back he stalked around her for the rest of the day. Expectation lay heavily in the air, she felt as if he only let her go so she would bring something back to him. He wanted it from her, something which seemed intangible. She didn’t have anything to give, except the pan of manicotti she was planning for dinner.

She had a blackout when he was helping her put away groceries. A few minutes of time that were just missing. A blackout had happened the day she came back too. She wonders if she needs to see a doctor about it. Instead she attributes it to stress and sweeps it under the rug. He treats her better after this second black out, he doesn’t look at her like a thing, instead he holds her and thanks her for being there. She’s just happy he’s there, embracing her, telling her everything is going to be fine, and repeating thank you over and over again into her hair until she has to escape his grasp to put dinner in the oven. When she comes back he’s wrapped up in his own head. 

During dinner he still won’t look her in the eye. She still feels lies and secrets weighing down the air around him. She isn’t sure, maybe he had always been like this; maybe she just didn’t see it because she wasn’t always around. She does remember though that he used to look at her, not through her. He used to look her in the eye. He used to use her name. He doesn’t any more.

When they are together she has flashes to a moment where she loses her internal monologue and rambles to strangers about who he sees when he lays with her. She thought it was Caroline, but now she doesn’t think he sees anything. He just closes his eyes and won’t look at her, he is rougher with her. She isn’t sure if he’s punishing her or himself. She just wants him to see her though, to see how happy she is when he is inside her. She wants to make him happy. She wants to be enough.

In his sleep he sweats, and tosses and turns and occasionally wakes her with by calling out a name. Once it was Caroline, once it was November, once he said something about echoes. She writes it off to nightmares. He never cries out her name.

She dreams of another life. A life that isn’t hers, it is intrigue and spies and clandestine meetings. It is secret societies and science fiction technologies. She thinks his conspiracy theories are turning her dreams into the X-files, only in them she isn’t an agent, he is, and she’s the mystery. Sometimes she dreams of him, she’s telling him things and he’s looking at her strangely, but he nods and doesn’t say much. She feels powerful in those moments. Other times she dreams of a child, a small girl, with eyes as big as her own. She seems familiar, but she doesn’t know why. She never has the same name in the dreams, it’s always something else.

They may sleep, but neither of them knows peace.


End file.
